CHAPTER XV.
TAFFY’S APPRENTICESHIP.
They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who, in addition to his other trades, was something of a glazier, had taken the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they curtained.
But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one evening, toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools.
“Tell ’ee what ’tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone that’ll teach en smithy-work. There’s no sense in this cold hammering.”
“Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire.”
“Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? He’s a first-rate workman.”
“That is more than six miles away.”
“No matter for that. There’s Joll’s Farm close by; Farmer Joll would board and lodge en for nine shillings a week, and glad of the chance; and he could come home for Sundays.”
Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at once.
“I may be calling before long, to look you up,” said the Bryanite, “but mind you do no more than nod when you see me.”